Birds of Prey

by Crouch, Blake

  Tears stream down her face.

  She is visibly shaking.

  “Please, Katie. Talk to us.”

  The teenage girl wipes her eyes.

  “I wanna go home. Please.”

  “Honey,” Maxine says. “You are home.”

  “Why do you keep saying that?” Katie screams.

  “Katie, just listen, please—”

  “That isn’t my name!”

  The girl jumps to her feet and her chair topples back as she rushes past Maxine and Rufus and out of the cupola.

  Her steps pounding down the squeaky staircase.

  Rufus shakes his head.

  “I told you,” Maxine says, “this is gonna happen every time if you don’t duct-tape them to the chair. Are the doors and windows locked?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  The girl’s footfalls growing faster but softer as she descends toward the first floor.

  “No, Beautiful.”

  “She’s gonna—”

  Rufus smiles, “She isn’t going any—”

  A scream explodes up out of the foyer and Luther hears something crash hard to the floor.

  “OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGod, oh…my….God!”

  Maxine scowls at her husband.

  “Rufus…what did you do?” She says it like she’s scolding a dog.

  He plucks an oyster off Luther’s plate, sucks it down, and stands.

  “Come see,” he says.

  Luther scoots back in his chair and follows his parents out of the cupola and down the staircase.

  The girl’s screams getting louder and louder as they descend.

  The corridors of the House of Kite masked in shadow.

  Lanterns mounted to the walls casting only the dimmest splotches of firelight on the old hardwood floors.

  Every year since that day on the beach, the house had seemed to grow darker, to let a little less of the light of the world slip in.

  Up ahead, Luther sees that his parents have stopped at the top of the flight of stairs leading down to the foyer.

  By the light of the Christmas tree in the living room—strands of tiny, white lights—Luther sees the girl in three pieces.

  Her legs below the knees still standing on the third step up from the bottom.

  The rest of her crawling toward the front door, a wide puddle of blood expanding in her wake.

  Rufus glances down at Luther.

  Runs his hands across the boy’s head.

  “Come help your old man get her stowed away?”

  “Sure.”

  “Make you a deal, Sweet-Sweet,” Maxine says. “You boys clean up that mess, I’ll clean the dinner table.”

  “You got a deal.”

  Rufus and Luther start down the steps.

  The girl has gone quiet, lost consciousness.

  “Now you watch yourself, son,” Rufus warns as they approach the bottom. “That string of razorwire runs over the third step up. You see it?”

  Luther does.

  Not the wire itself, but the blood glistening on the blades in the soft, white light of the Christmas tree.

  Into the underbelly of the house, and down the dirt-floored passageways the Kites have only begun to explore, Rufus and Luther drag the girl into a musty-smelling room of old, stone walls.

  “You already dug the hole?” Luther asks.

  “No, I made her do it yesterday when I started to get the feeling she wasn’t going to work out. Here, help me. One…two…three.”

  They swing her toward the hole and let go.

  “From downtown!” Rufus says.

  “What are you talking about?” Luther asks.

  “Basketball? Like we just made a shot?”

  “Oh.”

  Rufus kicks her arms in and the one leg still hung up on the lip of the grave.

  “You can finish this up, son?”

  “Yes.” Luther tries to hide the sniffle.

  “What’s wrong, buddy? You look sad.”

  Luther wipes his eyes, nodding slowly as he stares at the other mounds of dirt that mark the three other graves. There’s only room for one more, maybe two if they make perfect use of the space.

  “I miss her, Dad.”

  “I know. Me, too. Tell you what. January first, we’ll take the ferry over to Hatteras and drive up the coast to Nag’s Head. Think of all the families vacationing over the holiday. Celebrating. Ringing in the New Year.” Rufus grabs the shovel leaning against the wall, puts the handle in Luther’s hand. “Look at me son. I promise you. We’ll find the perfect Katie.”

  Cuckoo

  North Carolina Outer Banks, 1986

  “Hit him again, son.”

  “Dad—”

  “Right now. Hit him in the head.”

  “But Dad—”

  “Hit him in the head!”

  Tears streaming down the boy’s face.

  “What are you waiting for?”

  Luther looked down at the man—bound, bleeding, gagged, his eyes begging for mercy.

  He strained to raise the sixteen-pound sledgehammer.

  “Hit him in the FUCKING HEAD!”

  Luther hit the man in the head.

  And liked it.

  A Wake of Buzzards

  Sublette County, Wyoming, 1991

  Donaldson contemplated pulling over, but there was no place to pull over to. The desert road that ran straight off into the horizon as far as he could see was nothing more than two, faint tire tracks.

  He pressed the brake pedal and eased to a gradual stop, not concerned about blocking traffic, because he hadn’t seen another car in over an hour.

  The falling sun threw chevrons of red and orange over the burnt landscape, sagebrush fringed with light and glowing like they were ablaze.

  A tumbleweed tumbled across the dirt road, thirty yards in front of the bumper.

  Donaldson squinted at the fold-up map he’d bought at a gas station in Rock Springs, seventy miles south. He’d thought of it as a bumblefuck town at the time, but it was Manhattan compared to this.

  The road he was on was represented by a faint, yellow dash—mapspeak for an unimproved piece of shit. He glanced at his odometer, attempting to judge how far he’d come, and wondering if he should turn back. Open spaces made him wary—and he’d never seen anything like this.

  But the money for this particular job was good. So good, that Donaldson was suspicious about his cargo. Drugs maybe. Or guns. But he couldn’t check—they made you sign a contract upon hiring at the delivery service, attesting that you would never, under any circumstance, inspect the cargo you were delivering. A violation of customer confidence, they’d called it, or some shit he couldn’t have cared less about if there hadn’t been the implied threat of getting fired over the slightest customer complaint.

  He eyed his rearview mirror, scoping the box in the back seat, sealed with yellow tape along every edge and corner to discourage tampering. It was maybe a foot long, a few inches in diameter.

  He thought, for the hundredth time, about opening the box. But Donaldson liked his current gig as a courier, and didn’t want to lose it over something as stupid as curiosity. Being paid to travel was like having a license to kill folks nationwide. He knew that serial killers got caught because they left trails. But cops from different states didn’t compare notes. Hell, cops from different towns in the same state didn’t even talk to one another. Since taking the job six months ago, he’d disposed of bodies in four different time zones. No one would ever link his victims together, and Donaldson wanted to keep it that way.

  Still, something about that box, and this job, was suspect. And it didn’t help matters that he’d been driving for almost four hours and still had no idea how close he was to his destination. Whatever was in that box must be worth a fortune. The delivery fee alone was almost three hundred.

  He wiped his forearm across his sweaty brow—even the air conditioning couldn’t keep the desert heat at bay—and drained the dregs of lukewarm coffe
e from his thermos. Dispatch had instructed Donaldson to bring a jug of water in the event his car broke down, and Donaldson was beginning to realize he should have listened. Especially since he hadn’t been able to raise Dispatch since leaving Rock Springs. This place was so remote not even radio waves got through. Donaldson had considered investing in one of those cellular phones, but it probably wouldn’t have coverage way out here either. Besides, they were too big. He’d heard of a case in Chicago where a female cop escaped from a recreational killer by bashing him in the face with his own phone. Donaldson wanted to wait until the technology got better, and the phones got smaller.

  He punched the gas.

  The eddies of dust kicking up behind his rear tires looked like afterburners in the rays of fading sunlight. Ten more miles, and if he wasn’t there by then, he’d turn the hell around, and tell his boss the client was a no-show. Or maybe arrange for a pick-up in the nearest town. Might cut into some of the profit, but there was a little shit-kicker bar in Pinedale that Donaldson had passed through a few years ago, and he was certain he could pick up some little honey who wouldn’t be missed.

  It had been three weeks since his last murder, and Donaldson was feeling the itch.

  The sun was blinding in the rearview mirror.

  Another scalding day in hell.

  But he loved hell.

  Through the windshield, he watched the Wind River range growing impossibly larger as he approached at forty-five miles per hour.

  God, he couldn’t wait.

  Three months ago, he’d placed the order.

  Three. Long. Months.

  He almost hadn’t sprung for it. $600 was half a month’s salary at Woodside College. Almost half of that was the delivery fee, due to the illegality of the contents. But this was worth it.

  In the distance, he saw a cloud of dust.

  That had to be his package.

  Right on time, too.

  He wondered how closely the delivery drivers of Failsafe Transportation were tracked.

  It’d be so much fun to use what was coming on the driver. Bring him (or her) back to the shed. Getting rid of the car would be easy enough, though if the driver never showed back up for work, they’d probably trace them back to this western Wyoming desert. To his or her last delivery. But he’d paid with an anonymous money order and had used a false name. If a cop came to question him, he could simply play dumb. Say the driver never showed. But was it worth the risk? On the other hand, how often had someone actually driven themselves to him? Placed their life at his feet?

  Never.

  Definitely worth consideration.

  Funny thing about the urge. Unlike a big meal, or even sex, where it would sustain you for a while, a good long murder session was more akin to a drug. Even though you’d just had some, you still wanted more. A better buzz. A longer high. For the party to go on and on and on.

  The sun glinted off the chrome and glass of the approaching car, which was still a half mile out.

  He checked his face in the mirror—still a few scratches from the previous night’s guest, but nothing too—

  Shit.

  He glanced down.

  He’d forgotten to change, and the front of his tee-shirt was caked with day-old blood. It reeked, too, and not body odor reek.

  Dead guy reek.

  The sweet, rotting aroma of blood exposed to a hundred five degree heat.

  He’d already driven three miles out from the cabin, but he wondered if he should go back, change into fresh clothes. Last thing he needed was to throw a red flag by smelling like decomp.

  But chances were, the delivery driver had already seen him, or at least his dust trail.

  Might follow him back to the cabin, and that would be a true disaster.

  Fuck it.

  He pulled his tee-shirt over his head and tossed it in the backseat.

  He still stunk, but now it was just good old fashioned BO.

  No crime in that.

  When Donaldson saw the car approaching, he let his foot slide off the gas and brought his sedan to a stop. He sat for a moment, thinking.

  If it’s a woman, maybe I’ll take her.

  But the truth was, he wouldn’t really even have to take her anywhere. Could do her right here, out in the great wide open, under them skies of blue, just like the new Tom Petty song said. No one would hear her screams except him and the cacti.

  Donaldson thought about the toolbox he had in the trunk. And the Polaroid. Supposedly the final rays of sunshine were considered the magic hour for photographers.

  Donaldson had never seen how blood photographed in the twilight.

  Okay, a woman, and she’s mine.

  Or a man. If he’s okay-looking.

  Donaldson fidgeted in his seat, watching the car approach.

  Fuck it. As long as it’s human and has a pulse, I’ll take my shot.

  He turned off the engine and climbed out into the blistering desert heat, patting the folding knife in his back pants pocket.

  A crusty-brown Buick sped down the dirt road toward him, rocking along on its shocks.

  The Buick drew closer and closer, and for a moment, Donaldson thought it wasn’t going to stop, but then he heard the sound of its tires locking up.

  The car skidded to a halt, ten feet from the front bumper of his sedan.

  Its engine died and a cloud of dust and dirt swept over him.

  Donaldson coughed, his eyes burning, and for a moment, he couldn’t see a thing.

  A car door squeaked open and slammed.

  Footsteps crunched in the dirt.

  The first thing Donaldson saw was a pair of snakeskin boots, coated in dust, and then a pair of well-worn Wrangler jeans.

  The customer was a bare-chested, bronze-skinned man.

  Late-twenties.

  Muscular and slim.

  A well-proportioned face with a mop of short brown hair and bangs that hung in his eyes.

  Tasty, Donaldson thought.

  But at the same time, an element of this man was off.

  There was something—familiar—in those piercing blue eyes. The way they flicked this way and that, focusing on Donaldson, behind him, the car, the road, back to him, taking in his whole body, head to foot. Donaldson felt like he, and everything around him, was under intense scrutiny. He recognized this, because he was doing the same thing. No one in the man’s car, no one on the road behind him, no apparent weapon bulge in his jeans, just a thumb tucked into his belt near his rear pocket.

  Which is how Donaldson had his hand, because it was near his knife.

  The man smiled. “Find the place all right?”

  “You Miller?” Donaldson asked.

  “That’s what the bill says, right?”

  Donaldson wasn’t sure how he knew it, but he’d bet anything that this man’s name wasn’t Miller.

  Donaldson spread his feet slightly, letting his soles dig into the dirt. A defensive stance.

  “So, I believe everything’s been paid for?” the man said.

  “Ain’t too often I get a delivery out in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Well, this is the middle of nowhere. Beautiful, don’t you think?”

  Miller, or whatever his name was, had the setting sun behind him. Another thing that gnawed at Donaldson, because it was an old combat trick.

  “Your package is in the back seat, if you’d like to come on over and grab it.”

  Miller said, “You drove this package all the way down from Montana. Now I paid good money for this delivery. So why don’t you get it out of the backseat and bring it to me?”

  He kicked the ground with his black snakeskin boots, sent a twirling, mini-tornado of dust Donaldson’s way.

  Donaldson smiled. “Yes, sir, right away, sir.”

  Keeping one eye on Miller, he opened the door to his back seat and snatched up the cardboard box.

  “I gotta say, driving with this package for so long, I’ve been dying to know what’s in it.”

  “
Dying, huh?”

  Donaldson bumped the door shut with his hip, reaching around and grasping the knife in his back pocket.

  “Any chance you’ll tell me what it is?” Donaldson asked.

  “Maybe I’ll show you.”

  Donaldson walked sideways, out of the sun’s glare. “Yeah. Maybe you will.”

  Five paces away, Donaldson stopped.

  Letting the knife fall from his palm into his hand, he thumbed the blade open.

  Miller began to laugh. Which wasn’t the response Donaldson had been anticipating.

  Two seconds later, he caught the joke.

  Miller held a knife, too. Folder, with a serrated blade.

  Hell, it looked like the same damn model as Donaldson’s.

  “So, what are you planning on doing with that knife, fat man?” Miller asked.

  “I was going to cut off little bits of your face and feed them to you. You?”

  “Slice your medial collateral ligaments….you know the ones behind your knees? Then take you back to my place. I’ve got a shed filled with all sorts of goodies.”

  “Nice. Stop me from running?”

  “Stop you from doing any fucking moving at all. What’s your name?”

  “Donaldson. What’s your real name?”

  The man hesitated, just for a beat, and then said, “Orson.”

  “I see you got some splashes of blood on your jeans, Orson. You reek of it, too. Was that one of your ligament specials?”

  “Oh, no. Just a special friend I met last week in Casper. Or what’s left of him. Why don’t you put your knife back in your pocket, maybe I’ll do the same.”

  Donaldson licked his lips.

  They were so dry it was like running his tongue over sandpaper.

  “I’ll make you a deal. I count to three, and we both drop our knives. One…two…three.”

  Neither man dropped his knife.

  Both men smiled.

  Faint shadows moved across the desert floor in their general vicinity, and Orson must have noticed the break in Donaldson’s attention, because he said, “Buzzards.”

  Donaldson ventured a quick glance up into them skies of blue, saw two shadows with massive wingspans circling high above.

  “You think they know something we don’t?” Orson grinned.

  “I think you and I are experiencing some trust issues, Orson.”